ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The risk of being involved in a vehicle accident can be high in some areas and soon, some changes could be coming to Liberal to help reduce that risk, thanks to some discussion by the Liberal City Commission at its most recent meeting Tuesday evening.
“Back in 2022, Liberal joined the cities of Oberlin, Oakley, Scott City, and Garden City and the counties of Seward, Decatur, Logan, Scott, Finney, and Haskell in making an application for the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) planning grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to create SS4A compliant action plans for each community,” Chief Communications Officer Keeley Moree said. “The grant was awarded, and Kimley-Horn engineering consultants were selected to work with the City of Liberal to develop a Vision Zero Policy identifying safety challenges and action steps to improve roadway safety with a goal of achieving zero fatalities by the year 2035. This document can be used to support SS4A federal implementation grants for projects identified in the action plan, in addition to grant funding opportunities available through the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT).”
Kimley-Horn representative Anthony Gallo then went into more detail with the commission about the program.
“The SS4A Program is a new federal grant program that came from the bipartisan infrastructure law that was passed a couple years ago that focuses on transportation and safety,” Gallo said. “The City of Garden City led an application for a consortium of communities along the U.S. Hwy. 83 corridor, and each of those communities is getting their own tailored safety action plan, and then there is a joint plan being put together for the entire corridor. First and foremost, we want to identify transportation safety projects and policies we can implement in the city, and some of that will be coming out of your Comprehensive Plan as well, which I know is also ongoing.”
Ultimately, Gallo said, this is opening Liberal up to more funding opportunities at the federal level as well as state level with KDOT and the local level.
“Within the City of Liberal's plan, the grant was awarded 2023, the plan was worked on in 2024, and we're moving into the final adoption of all the communities and then implementing these plans moving forward,” Gallo said. “There are eight required components from the feds that go into these action plans, one of which is the safety analysis, which is a very data-intensive effort that looks at crash data, traffic count data and a number of other components, as well as engagement and collaboration. We talked to a number of stakeholders along the U.S. Hwy. 83 corridor that had hosted several workshops during the planning process as well as a public survey that went out to all the communities. The output of the plan includes recommended policy and process changes, recommended strategies and specific safety projects for the Liberal community. That safety task force hosted three meetings in 2024, and that task force did have City of Liberal representation. Some key themes for the City of Liberal ... about half of respondents to the survey did not agree the city streets were fully safe, with intersections being a major concern (which checks out with the crash data), reckless and careless driving also being a concern, and semi truck traffic also being a concern along the entire corridor, leading to a need for widening U.S. Hwy. 83 to a four-lane highway. In regard to crash history, I know from looking at the Comprehensive Plan the data is very similar, and we looked at the most recent five years of crash data for the city, and my focus for this was on fatalities, serious injuries and other injury crashes. Property damage only are fender benders and other similar incidents, but our program is focused on how do we prevent those injury crashes and fatality crashes. The data shows more than 100 of those types of crashes, so definitely not an insignificant amount of damage happening in this community coming from traffic crashes. Looking at where those took place within the city limits, one of the hot spots was Kansas Avenue and the major intersections in that area. There were also multiple incidents along U.S. Hwy. 54 and Pancake Boulevard and U.S. Hwy. 83, but you can definitely see the high numbers especially around downtown.”
Gallo added there was a lot of data looked at.
“With safety emphasis areas, these are common themes we see in the crash data, so these are crash reports that have been compiled by KDOT. We've got a lot of information on each of these crashes and overwhelmingly, a common theme we saw with those crashes was the intersections in the city limits, which isn't totally uncommon for incorporated cities,” Gallo said. “Lack of using seatbelts was also a big issue in a lot of the fatality and injury crashes, as well as vehicles departing their lane and ultimately getting involved in a crash. People walking and biking on the roads also came up. If you look at the fatality, serious injury, and injury crashes, we see more than 80 of those, including four fatalities and 13 serious injuries that took place at intersections. We also saw a number of crashes involving younger drivers, occupant protection issues, roadway departures, etc. In terms of countermeasures, there are a lot of proven strategies from KDOT and the federal level, especially at intersections based on what I've seen and learned about the Liberal community are things like signage and striping and lighting, so having more warning signage at the intersections and adding lighting are options. A lot of traffic signals, especially at the U.S. Hwy. 83-U.S. Hwy. 54 intersection and a couple others, have yellow backplates, and those are becoming more and more common since they do make a difference, especially at night. Doubling up the signage or making the signage bigger and adding the rumble strips are also options, and they're low-cost and easy to implement when streets are being resurfaced. Striping and signage updates are the options I usually recommend since that type of work doesn't have too much of a cost and is also easier to do compared to a full overhaul.”
With all of that in mind, Gallo said there are multiple potential projects that could happen in Liberal.
“In terms of recommended projects within the City of Liberal limits, we went through and looked at several potential safety projects across that entire study area and prioritized things based on crash history, crash risks and other factors like the wideness of the roads and pedestrian activity and things like that,” Gallo said. “We also got some stakeholder feedback from the survey and other interviews and outreach we did. The top priority locations for the city of Liberal include along U.S. Hwy. 83 and U.S. Hwy. 54 based on our scoring, and there are other locations that are important but not quite as urgent like Kansas Avenue and 15th Street. One of the Priority Level One projects would include U.S. Hwy. 83 in the northeast corner of the city as it loops around and is offset from Tucker Road, there have been a couple fatality accidents there and a number of serious injury crashes, and there are some things we're looking at to help in that area. Another project is at U.S. Hwy. 54 and Western Avenue, there have been a number of crashes there, and there are obviously multiple challenges there because of the railroad tracks there just to the north and the interesting geometry there, and there are some options with that project that could be looked at. Another project would be at the U.S. Hwy. 83-U.S. Hwy. 54 intersection, which is already under study by KDOT, and I know the fifth and sixth lanes were taken out of that area a few years ago.”
Another potential project would be on Kansas Avenue north of 15th Street near the Seward County Community College campus, Gallo said.
“There's a lot of pedestrian activity there going from the college to the retail and restaurants, and with the student housing expansion being looked at there, we're looking at ways to get pedestrians across Kansas Avenue and making them more visible to drivers,” Gallo said. “With the overpass by the National Beef plant, that's really tough, and we did indeed hear a lot about trains stopping downtown and delaying traffic. Then, from U.S. Hwy. 54 along the south side of the city, there was a lot of stakeholder feedback on that area as well, and that's also a challenging area because of semi trucks and driveways and some other issues. The big issue we're seeing with U.S. Hwy. 54 is the high number of access points, and I know KDOT's done multiple studies on access point management and consolidating some of those driveways.”
There are a number of programs available at the state and federal levels for transportation safety, Gallo said.
“KDOT will, in the next couple years, have a High Risk Urban Roads Program that will be tailor-made for communities like Liberal with four-lane undivided roadways, with intersection issues, with pedestrian crossing issues, etc., so I would advise City of Liberal leadership to keep an eye out for that since it'll be a great opportunity to get funding for those improvements throughout the community, and the state will also provide some guidance,” Gallo said. “KDOT also has some other programs that can be tailored toward transportation safety that can also be looked into. We highly recommend approving this resolution, because having things like this in place can look really, really good when you're applying for federal funding opportunities and similar opportunities, which can be really beneficial. It’ll be a lot of work, but well worth it in the grand scheme of things.”
